“For the rule of law, SOS the EU”: tens of thousands of Spaniards gathered in Madrid on Saturday to denounce the future amnesty law for Catalan separatist leaders and activists, which allowed the left-wing government to ‘be reappointed.
Around 170,000 people, according to the prefecture, gathered in Cibeles Square, around the famous fountain of the same name, in the heart of the Spanish capital, where Real Madrid supporters meet in the event of victory, to respond to the call to demonstrate launched by the right.
To the cries of “Sánchez, traitor”, “Sánchez, son of a b****”, “Sánchez in prison!” or “Catalonia is Spain”, the participants, of all ages, had tied on their shoulders or waved Spanish flags, and others brandished European flags distributed by the European People’s Party (EPP, right) .
“What Pedro Sánchez wants is to cut Spain into pieces“, protests Maria Angeles Galan, a 65-year-old retiree from Madrid, “that there is the Basque country on one side, Catalonia on the other, and to say that nothing happened, and that the judges don’t matter.”
Coming second in the legislative elections on July 23 behind right-wing leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo (PP), socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in power since 2018, managed to be reappointed on Thursday after having negotiated in all directions to obtain the support of regionalist groups, including the Catalan independence parties.
In exchange for their votes, essential to the formation of a majority, he accepted several concessions, including the upcoming adoption of a very controversial amnesty law for separatist leaders and activists prosecuted in particular for their involvement in the attempt to secession of Catalonia in 2017.
Mariana (who does not wish to give her last name), a 51-year-old entrepreneur, came specially from Zaragoza (north-east) to protest “against the amnesty”: “I believe that the fight begins now, and in the long term term. It has to be known, it’s a message sent to Europe”, she says, pointing to the European flag that her companion is holding at her side.
As for Luis Garrido, a 65-year-old retiree from Guadalajara in the Madrid region, he calls himself “socialist but not sanchist” (supporter of Sánchez).
For him, the Prime Minister should never have agreed to be reappointed “at this price”: “I don’t want Spain to sink” and avoid “Spain being divided in this way”.
The crowd gathered around noon and dispersed peacefully after the speeches.
For two weeks, demonstrations have taken place every evening in front of the headquarters of the Socialist Party in Madrid, and some of them have degenerated, giving rise to several dozen arrests.